Syria has accepted the Russian initiative on the chemical weapons to withdraw the justifications of the US aggression on the Syrian people and to pull Syria out of a spiral of sorrow and death, because war is always a defeat for humanity.  The agreement stemmed from the Syrian leadership's responsibility to prevent the catastrophic Western aggression on the country and preserve the Syrian citizens' lives and the infrastructure of the country. It is also based on confidence in the Russian leadership which has proved itself as a truthful partner in averting U.S. aggression on the Syrian people. The initiative is positive and constructive since it gives a push towards finding a solution to the crisis in Syria. It provides a chance for a political settlement in Syria among the Syrians themselves away from foreign diktat. Putting chemical weapons in Syria under international supervision pulls the rug from under the feet of those who seek an aggression and opens up a realistic way out of the crisis without any military intervention or foreign diktat.

The support for the Russian initiative came out of keenness to prevent the occurrence of war whose repercussions could go beyond the region. Any war against Syria would be devastating to the whole countries in the region and would immerse the region in the vicious circle of violence and instability for decades and generations to come.

Solution to the chemical weapons issue in Syria would be a positive step towards solving the crisis through a comprehensive national dialogue that encompasses all spectra of Syrian society. But implementing the initiative does not only depend on Syria and it requires cooperation from the US side which should first halt its aggressive policies towards Syria.

The White House has two options now: one of them is to consider Russia’s proposal in earnest and to work seriously to make it implementable. This will mean the Americans will avail themselves of the opportunity to abandon their military action, war mongering campaign and halt belligerency towards Syria. This option might provide the U.S. and President Barack Obama, who positions himself as a peacekeeper, with a way out of the complicated political situation, the one the American officials  have driven themselves into by their cruel statements and baseless accusations against Syria.

The other option is to ignore Russia’s proposal and to leave the military scenario as the only way to resolve the crisis in Syria. But this would be a bad and very grave decision, since the strike on Syria would belittle the U.S. prestige across the world because of its catastrophic repercussions. Hope is pinned on Obama and his aides to cancel this option and benefit from the previous failing military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan from which the peoples of the two states and the region are still suffering.

Throughout the American response, the world will be able to judge the authenticity of the intentions and the true objectives of the U.S. foreign policy as regards the crisis in Syria.

Syria has immediately started to implement the Russian initiative by joining the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Syria has become a full member of the Chemical Weapons Convention. But this move wasn't a spur of the moment decision, as Syria had submitted to the Security Council in 2003 a draft resolution for making the entire Middle East free from WMDs, but all Syrian efforts in this regard were thwarted by the refusal of Israel and its supporters.

 The US seriousness towards the initiative will help avert war and pave the way for the settlement of the crisis in Syria peacefully.

K.Q.

The US President Barak Obama should know well that history's judgment will be that the president who seeks to prevent war and destruction and make peace is stronger than the president who seeks war and destruction; because throughout history we have seen that the first victims of all the wars that happened in the past were children, women and innocent people. He should not forget that he was the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Laureates are presumably advocates of peace not wars and reckless military adventures.

What are the real aims of Obama’s military adventure? It is to strike the capabilities of the Syrian Arab army in favour of al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria, like Jabhat al-Nusra, the so-called Ahrar al-Sham brigade and the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham despite the fact that these groups were classified by the US as terrorist organizations, and here lies one main aspect of the US double standard policy in dealing with the crisis in Syria. How can Obama support those who blew up the World Trade Center in New York on September 11th 2011? Who is the most beneficiary of this military adventure? The use of force against sovereign states would increase the terrorists' activities in Syria and the rest of the region's countries and it will increase the number of refugees and displaced citizens.  The US didn't learn from what happened in Afghanistan when it supported Al Qaeda in the 1980s to fight the former Soviet Union and ended up fighting it there now. It seems that the US wants to make Syria a base for Al Qaeda to spread violence and extremism in all the countries of the region.  Israel is the most beneficiary, because extremism serves Zionism and enables Israel to invade the Arab region politically and economically through implementing the notorious new Middle East project which aims to perpetuate the Israeli occupation of the Arab territories and plunder the Arab resources, especially oil and gas.  Instead of thinking of the warmongering campaign and launching a thoughtless military adventure whose adverse consequences would not be limited, Obama and his ilk have to focus efforts on finding a peaceful solution through convening the intended international conference in Geneva and calling on the so-called opposition to take part in the conference without any pre-conditions. Obama and the warmongers in his administration should know well that the Syrian government has agreed on participating in Geneva 2 conference without any pre-conditions, whereas no unified attitude was released by the so-called opposition regarding the conference. The only pre-occupation for this opposition is to seek for more weapons, tools of destruction and call for foreign military intervention in their own country.

The US and European peoples had firmly stood against the aggression; the British House of Commons and the French Senate were a good example to that.

New polls in the United States of America revealed that the majority of the Americans are opposing any military act against Syria. The polls conducted by the New York Times and CBS News showed that 80% of the Americans have stressed that Obama didn't give clear justifications for the real goals of the US administration in Syria while 72% of the American people rejected the role of the US and its intervention in other countries to change their regimes with the aim of achieving political and economic interests.

The New York Times said that the new poll reveals a great change in the American public opinion on the US role in the world and the fatigue it has suffered due to the previous US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The American people seem to call on Obama: Stop your intervention in other countries and pay more attention to your people’s internal affairs and social welfare.

K.Q.

Despite the fact that calls have been delivered to Obama from various parts of the world to cancel his intention regarding the reckless and irresponsible military strike against Syria, Obama and his ilk are pressing ahead in preparing for a war for Syria.

Massive demonstrations were held in various parts of the world calling on Obama to stop warmongering campaign against Syria. Even in the US, hundreds of people protested in New York and Indianapolis cities against the U.S. threats to launch aggression on Syria. Protesters waved placards saying "We do not want more wars for companies' benefits”. Not far from the White House, hundreds of people staged a sit-in expressing their rejection to the U.S threats to launch unjustifiable war on Syria.

Pope Francis of the Vatican led a mass peace vigil on St. Peter's Square in the Vatican City last Saturday in which about 100,000 people participated. In his sermon, the Pontiff warned against the adverse consequences and catastrophic outcome of the war against Syria. He said that the talk of war against Syria has prevented a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria and caused the senseless massacre of innocent people there. He called on world leaders to pull humanity out of a spiral of sorrow and death, saying war is always a defeat for humanity.

After all these calls, prayers, masses and demonstrations, it is time for Obama to stop turning a blind eye and a deaf ear and cancel his thoughtless military venture against Syria.  Obama has to rethink thousand times before going on with his planned military action against Syria. It seems that the US president has not learnt lessons from catastrophic experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan.   Obama learned nothing from the devastating and costly aftermaths of the military invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and now he is beating drums to attack Syria capitalizing on the fabricated allegation of chemical weapons’ use.

The US administration’s allegations for war on Syria are invalid and the UN Charter prohibits unilateral bombing in such cases as Syria. 

The U.S. threats to launch an aggression on Syria are considered a transgression against the entire Arab nation and its national security.

All Arab and foreign calls that try to provide justifications for the US-Zionist aggression on Syria are completely denounced, because they are part of the global conspiracy being launched against Syria. The plans of the US and its allies of the West and Zionism to launch an attack against Syria come in completion of its armed attacks on the Arab region which started with invading Iraq in the framework of its so-called "The New Middle East" project aimed to divide the Arab nation and plunder its resources.

The U.S. threats to launch an aggression on Syria are considered a transgression against the entire Arab nation and its national security.

Those who killed millions of Iraqis, Afghans and Japanese by nuclear weapons and covered the Zionism's crimes against the children of Palestine and Lebanon can't use the pretext of defending the Syrian people to launch an aggression that would kill thousands of Syrians. So, once again, Obama is asked to listen to the voice of wisdom in the US and the world, cancel his catastrophic military venture and support the political solution of the crisis in Syria. 

K.Q.

The US administration is committing a folly and grave strategic mistake by thinking of a military action against Syria and will accordingly take the blow and definitely suffer as a result of such reckless military venture. The main objective of the global arrogance front represented by the US and Israel is to dominate the Middle East, with Israel in the saddle, controlling everything politically and economically.

 The goal of chemical weapons pretext is well-known to everyone:  political and economic hegemony over the Arab region. But the Americans are trying through rhetoric and word-manipulation to pretend that they are entering this issue for a humane goal as was the case in all the previous military attacks launched by the US in various parts of the world to achieve colonialist political and economic interests.  The US politicians do not care about humanitarian issues at all. They are making humanitarian claims at a time when their track record includes the atrocities at Guantanamo and Abu Ghreib prisons, as well as the massacres of innocent people of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, not to mention the silence of successive US administrations towards the savage atrocities committed by the Israel against defenseless Palestinian and Arab people over the past 65 years.

A military action against Syria would be a grave  mistake whose consequences will not remain limited. Any direct military aggression by the US and its agents seeks to destroy the Syrian state and undermine its civilization, Arabism and values.  The military aggression on Syria will be the worst mistake by the West and will blow up the situation in the whole region, because the repercussions will be catastrophic. The outcome of the U.S.-led war on Iraq was complete destruction of the Iraqi state, the killing of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of more than three million Iraqis.

The international law doesn't permit the use of force except when there's a Security Council resolution or in self-defense as per article 51 of the UN charter, and there are no basis to apply article 51 to the situation in Syria.

The US and its allies are completely disregarding facts capitalizing the chemical weapons lies to create a pretext for attacking Syria after all attempts to topple the Syrian state using terrorists have failed. Those who believe the chemical weapons pretext are gullible and ignorant, since it's illogical for the Syrian government to use such weapons against its people and in its own capital at the same time when the UN experts arrived in Damascus.

Washington, without waiting the results of the UN investigation, announced immediately its readiness to begin a military operation against Syria, with other regional and Arab tools – rushing to announce readiness to participate in the reckless military adventure without Security Council authorization.

Any possible military action against Syria by the US and its allies will be a failure and Washington will certainly pay the price for such irresponsible venture. It seems that Obama and his administration have fallen into the Tel Aviv trap and he is too blind to see the adverse consequences. If they attack Syria, however limited it may be, the long term blow to US and their allies are an absolute certainty.

The steadfastness of the Syrian people and their valiant armed forces during two years of an unprecedented war is enough to foil any US-Western aggression. The will of the Syrian people and their national sense are stronger than ever. The Syrian people have unshakable confidence in victory over the colonialist project and its terrorist and takfiri tools.

K.Q.

 “Given the case that has been presented to me, I believe that a military strike against Syria at this time is the wrong course of action. In good conscience, I cannot support the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s resolution and will be working with my colleagues and the administration to develop other options. I believe that we must exhaust all diplomatic options and have a comprehensive plan for international involvement before we act” said Senator Joe Manchin in a Statement on Syria.

Meantime, the Rep. Senator Alan Grayson, D-Fla. says the Obama administration has manipulated intelligence to push its case for U.S. involvement in Syria.

Grayson stated that  members of Congress are being given intelligence briefings without any evidence to support administration claims, asserting that the details in the administration's public, non-classified report are being contested.

Senator Grayson points to an article published by The Daily Caller that alleges the communications actually showed Syrian officers were surprised by the alleged chemical weapon attack. The communications, according to unnamed sources paraphrased in article, were intercepted by Israeli intelligence and "doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion."

"What they say in The Daily Caller is that [intercepted communications] would lead one to the opposite conclusion," Grayson said. "I don't know if it's right or wrong, [but] there's a very simple way to find out, that's for the administration to show me and other members of Congress" translated transcripts of the intercepts, he said.

Members of Congress are "not being given any of the underlying elements of the intelligence reports," according to Grayson, pointing out that other examples of intelligence he believes has been manipulated to favor war.

"Well yes," Grayson said, "but I'm very constrained about talking about it. ... This has become a fundamental problem with our system: The information we do get is limited, but beyond that we are very constrained in discussing it."

The four-page White House report on the alleged attack is no more than "a briefing paper with arguments in favor of attacking Syria" that "doesn't present both sides of the issue," Grayson said.

"We can't go to war to spare anyone embarrassment," Grayson told U.S. News. "That would be utterly immoral, we're talking about shedding American blood. ... The president has already made that argument and it's falling on deaf ears."

On his part, the Democratic California Rep. congressman, John Garamendi, who opposes U.S. military intervention in Syria expressed “deep concern” following Secretary of State John Kerry’s conference call with House Democrats on the subject:  ‘Well, it’s the credibility of the United States.’ Really? How is our credibility enhanced or harmed?”

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Rick Nolan angered Kerry on the conference call by comparing possible intervention in Syria to the United States’ failed participation in the Vietnam War.

“After a three-hour classified briefing and taking time to read all the classified documents, what I have heard and read has only served to convince me more than ever of the folly and danger of getting America involved in the Syrian war. I will vote and work against President Obama’s request for open-ended authority to launch military strikes against the Syrian army,” Nolan said following the call, expressing fear over the would be  “collateral damage.”

 “I am deeply concerned that the proposed White House resolution for Syria is over-broad and would allow troops on the ground. Can’t support,” California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell tweeted.

Meanwhile, the New York Congressman Chris Gibson, who served 24 years in the Army, and that includes four combat tours in Iraq, said that If we bomb that country, are we going to make it better, or are we going to make it worse? It's my judgment that we really run the risk of escalating the conflict, Americanizing that civil war, all of this not in our interest and certainly not in the interest of an ultimate peaceful resolution to that civil war. I support remaining on the diplomatic track.

Actually, all of the above-mentioned asserts the balanced wise stances of Russia, under the wise historic and strong leadership of H.E. President Vladimir Putin who underscores that the alleged chemical weapons use in Syria is a provocation carried out by the "rebels" to attract a foreign-led strike. 

Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim